[Fat Momma] Class Fleet Tender
The [
Fat Momma]-class fleet tender was developed by the Ministry of Defense's Naval Design Bureau to address concerns of individuals and parties within the Republic's government about the Helghan Navy's ability to conduct operations beyond the Republic's borders in areas without established infrastructure, particularly within hostile territory.
Taking advantage of recent developments in material science, the [
Fat Momma] easily dwarfs all other ships currently in Helghan service, and was designed with radically different criteria in mind than previous ships, even including civilian vessels such as the Charon- and Bellerophon-class. As a result of those criteria, the [
Fat Momma] class is effectively a mobile space station, intended to support the fleets and troops by acting as a refueling, maintenance, and resupply depot.
To facilitate this function, it not only possesses extensive fuel storage tanks with sophisticated systems and drones to allow for the automated refueling of vessels without the need to risk human personnel on EVA missions, but also took inspiration from Inner Sphere FTL methodology and added a series of capacitor banks and extendable solar collectors, to stretch its on-board fuel reserves by allowing for the recharging of warp drives in non-urgent situations.
Much of the remaining space is dedicated to a series of cargo bays and workshops. Outfitted with advanced manufacturing equipment and systems capable of simulating a variety of atmospheric or gravitational conditions as required, these workshops lack the raw output volume of dedicated factories, but are instead designed to offer a high degree of flexibility, and are thus readily capable of producing a wide variety of spare parts and basic munitions from feedstock as the situation demands, and include smelting and refining capabilities in order to allow for the use of damaged components, battlefield scrap, and even ores as raw materials.
To further enhance its support capabilities, the [
Fat Momma] class also carries a number of smaller harvesting and asteroid mining vessels equipped with intra-system FTL drives, in order to ensure a minimum supply of raw materials.
Unfortunately, the [
Fat Momma] class' impressive support capabilities required trade-offs in other areas.
Its tactical mobility is severely lacking, with its drive and thrusters sufficient to achieve and maintain stable orbits, but wholly insufficient for even short-range travel, making it reliant on other ships acting as tugs in such a situation.
It's defensive capabilities are similarly limited. Due to the way even minor external damage could potentially interfere with critical systems such as its solar collectors or the refueling systems, it only carries an absolute minimum of conventional armor and instead relies on energy shields to withstand hits from enemy weapons, with a small number of long- and mid-range laser weaponry. While capable of dealing with hazardous space debris or minor harassment, it is completely incapable of withstanding a determined attack. While its defensive abilities could potentially be enhanced to a degree by replacing the resource extraction vessels with escort dropships, its best option when seriously threatened is to withdraw via FTL jump. To help facilitate this, both its energy collectors and external fuel storage tanks come with mechanisms to rapidly discard them in an emergency.
Keeping its capabilities and limitations in mind, the intended use of the [
Fat Momma] class is to deploy within uninhabited systems behind enemy lines or the outer reaches of inhabited enemy systems if necessary, ideally at a location with readily-available raw materials such as a gas giant, yet a substantial distance away from any Jumppoints. From there, the [
Fat Momma] class can support nearby friendly forces by distributing fuel and supplies either shipped in from within the Helgan republic, or manufactured on site, and relocate as the frontline shifts over the course of a conflict.
During times of peace, the [
Fat Momma] class can also provide valuable services to the Republic by using its resource gathering and manufacturing capabilities to assist recently-colonized or otherwise underdeveloped planets with the establishment and expansion of critical infrastructure, or the construction of space facilities.
(For fuck's sake; Terris, I don't give a shit if your wife finds your simultaneously antiquated and infantile humor funny, we are NOT forwarding this proposal with a name as idiotic as "Fat Momma"! Come up with a non-stupid name, or if you lack the creativity to do it yourself, find someone to do it for you.
And if you try to go behind my back about this again, I'll have you reassigned to Sanitation, and you can spend the rest of your career trying to design better space shitters.
- Allast)
Trespe Aerospace Support Drone
Named for a stinging swarm insect from Helghan's inhospitable jungles, the Trespe is an effort to extend the Helghan Republic's capabilities in automation and autonomous military robots into the field of aerospace combat.
Its intended purpose is to support existing Helghan aerospace forces by intercepting hostile missiles, harassing enemy aerospace forces, and acting as an expendable asset for potentially high-risk tasks.
As its small size sharply limits the amount of armor it can carry, the drone instead relies on evasion to avoid destruction. For this purpose it is equipped with a quartet of rotary thrusters, each capable of independent movement, as well as a substantial degree of thrust vectoring, resulting in a level of maneuverability unparalleled by any other combat platform in known space.
The drone's armaments are similarly limited by its size, consisting of a single Small Laser as its main weapon for use against enemy aerospace assets or ground targets, combined with a pair of smaller laser weapons (about equivalent to an infantry laser rifle in power) in ventral and dorsal turret mounts meant to provide limited anti-missile capabilities.
While lacking the firepower to be an individual threat to any but the most fragile of enemy ASF or aircraft, the Trespe is designed to be produced in substantial quantities and deployed in groups, with several drones assigned to each of our own ASF craft. In combat, the Trespe would then use its turreted laser weapons to destroy missiles fired at friendly units, before closing in on enemy craft and target them with its main weapon. Given its limited damage potential, the primary purpose is to harass and distract the enemy pilots, forcing them to split their attention, giving our own pilots an advantage.
The expendable nature of the Trespe drone when compared to manned ASFs also makes it well suited for high-risk tasks such as low-altitude recon flights, or drawing out enemy anti-air units for SEAD missions.
To help reduce the logistical difficulty and burden of deploying the Trespe in its intended manner, it is equipped with electromagnetic clamps, allowing it to attach to other vehicles or the outside of vessels for storage or deployment.
[The overall concept looks interesting and has my support; contact the workshop and have them build a couple of prototypes for testing, including variants with different configurations for their primary and secondary weapons.
I'm skeptical about the utility of the EM clamps as a method of storage and deployment. Leave it in for now, but get started looking at alternative uses for the clamps - deploying bombs or other munitions or equipment, perhans? - as well as working out dedicated means of efficient storage and deployment.
- Col. Teraak]
